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Buffy the Vampire Slayer#1

Cover: Arthur Adams

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1

Sep 1998 · Dark Horse · 2.95 USD; 4.15 CAD

📊 ~109,912 copies sold its debut month

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“Wu-Tang Fang”

★ 1st appearance — Buffy Summers

About this Issue

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 marks the formal launch of Buffy Summers' ongoing comic book career, opening a continuous Dark Horse run that would last twenty years (1998–2018) and eventually evolve into an officially canonical extension of the television series. It established the template — TV-adjacent, episodic, approved-but-non-canon storytelling — that defined licensed comics tie-ins to prestige television in the late 1990s and demonstrated that a female-led genre franchise could sustain a long-form comics universe. Although the issue itself sits outside official Buffyverse continuity, it seeded the infrastructure that made later canonical seasons (Season Eight through Twelve) possible. The series it inaugurated ran 63 issues and directly laid the groundwork for Joss Whedon's eventual 'Season Eight' experiment, which in turn influenced other television franchises to continue their stories in comic form.

writer Andi Watson · artist Joe Bennett · inker Rick Ketcham · colorist Guy Major · letterer Janice Chiang · cover Arthur Adams

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (NM) $15

CGC 9.8 · 242 in census $188

CGC 9.6 · 128 in census $101*

CGC 9.4 · 58 in census $77

CGC 9.2 · 31 in census $75*

CGC 9.0 · 22 in census $64*

CGC 8.5 · 15 in census $58*

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CGC 8.0 · 3 in census $58*

CGC 7.5 · 9 in census $24*

CGC 7.0 · 6 in census $24*

CGC 6.5 none in existence

CGC 6.0 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 5.5 · 1 in census $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

This exact issue on ebay

CGC 9.8 ▾ $125–$135 2 listings

CGC 9.8 · Variant $125 CGC 9.8 · Variant $134.99

CGC 9.6 ▾ $80–$175 3 listings

CGC 9.6 · Variant $80 CGC 9.6 · Foil $125.99 CGC 9.6 · Foil $174.95

Raw — NM+ $9.99 1 listing

Raw — NM ▾ $5.25–$55 3 listings

NM $5.25 NM $15.85 NM · Foil $55

Raw — NM- ▾ $22.2–$30 3 listings

NM- · Foil $22.2 NM- · Foil $25 NM- · Signed $30

Raw — VF/NM ▾ $4.99–$19.99 2 listings

VF/NM $4.99 VF/NM · Newsstand $19.99

Raw — FN/VF $2.5 1 listing Raw — VERY GOOD $8.72 1 listing

Raw / ungraded ▾ $1.49–$150 31 listings

Verified matches for Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 · eBay asking prices, seen 33 days ago

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VF/NM $4.98 VF $5.98 Variant $9.99 Signed $30 CGC 9 · 2nd print $35 CGC 9.8 · Foil $56.96 CGC 9.8 · Foil $78 CGC 9.8 $150

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History

Dark Horse Comics secured the Buffy license in 1998 while the television series was still at the height of its popularity, debuting the franchise in comics with the short story 'MacGuffins' (Dark Horse Presents Annual, August 26, 1998) roughly a month before this first numbered issue reached shelves. Issue #1 — titled 'Wu-Tang Fang' — was written by Andi Watson (creator of the indie series Skeleton Key) and drawn by Joe Bennett, a Brazilian artist who had worked on Superman and Journey into Mystery; storyline approvals ran through both Fox and Whedon's office as part of standard merchandising oversight, though Whedon himself had minimal direct creative involvement in the early non-canon run. Editor Scott Allie oversaw the series throughout its Dark Horse life, and the initial issues were set during Season 3 of the television show.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Buffy Summers in an ongoing comic book series — Key Collector Comics designates it the 1st appearance of the character in comics (she had previously appeared only in the 1992 film and on television).
Published September 23, 1998 by Dark Horse Comics; story titled 'Wu-Tang Fang,' written by Andi Watson and illustrated by Joe Bennett (pencils) and Rick Ketcham (inks).
Cover art by Art Adams; the issue was available with at least five distinct cover versions, including a gold foil logo variant, multiple photo covers using Season 2 promotional photographs montaged by Dave Stewart, and an Another Universe exclusive photo variant.
The Buffy comics franchise debuted one month earlier in Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998 with the short story 'MacGuffins' (written by Jen Van Meter, art by Luke Ross), making that the true first comic appearance; #1 is the first issue of the ongoing numbered series.
The ongoing series launched here ran 63 issues (September 1998 – November 2003) and was later retroactively branded 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer Classic' to distinguish it from the canonical Season Eight continuation that began in 2007.
Stories in this non-canon run were set between television episodes and required plot approval from Fox and Whedon's office, but Whedon himself wrote none of the first 63 issues.
The series and its tie-in material have been collected in multiple formats: a seven-volume Dark Horse Omnibus (running chronologically along the TV timeline), and a Boom! Studios Legacy Edition (from 2020–2021, reprinting in publication order), with #1 collected in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus Vol. 3 and Legacy Edition Book 1.
Dark Horse held the Buffy comics license for exactly twenty years (1998–2018); after the license transferred to Boom! Studios, a reboot series launched in January 2019, and in 2025 Dynamite Entertainment announced acquisition of the license for a new series debuting in 2026.